


good orderly direction

by preromantics



Category: Social Network (2010) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-30
Updated: 2010-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:10:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preromantics/pseuds/preromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>We’re not going skating when you get here,” Jesse says. He has plans. Mainly plans that involve the mini bar and seeing Andrew again, finally, and maybe passing out in the same bed and waking up sort of tangled together and overheated, like that one time (two, three, five times) on the press tour. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	good orderly direction

**Author's Note:**

> Advent fic. Originally posted 12/5/2010.

Jesse didn’t specifically ask for a hotel room with a great view -- or, actually, he didn’t even ask for a particular hotel, and it’s still sort of weird that there are people who book hotels  _for_  him, and the cost just sort of magically evaporates itself from his bank account, which should probably worry him but doesn’t, sort of. The point is, his view is pretty nice. 

He’s looking down at Rockefeller plaza, right down at the ice skating rink and the gigantic tree, both of which look pretty small, actually, from up on the whatever-th-floor (Jesse doesn’t think about it, he doesn’t have a height thing, not really, heights are cool and it’s New York City and everything is -- up -- but he still doesn’t think about it). He drums his fingers on the little metal ledge holding up the glass separating him from sudden death with his phone tucked against his ear, waiting for Andrew to pick up on the other end. 

“Did you get in okay?” Andrew asks, as soon as the line picks up on his end.

“Hi,” Jesse says, flat, but he grins a little out the window. “Are we at that point we don’t have to exchange formal greetings at all anymore? Like, I feel like this is something we should discuss, so there aren’t any --”

“What?” Andrew asks, cutting him off, “Did you drink on the plane?”

“No,” Jesse says, which is a lie. “That was a lie, but, that’s irrelevant, I think.” It makes him grin a little more at his barely-there reflection in the window when he realizes he can almost clearly picture Andrew other end of the line, a little bit of a furrow between his brows.

“So anyway,” Jesse says, when Andrew doesn’t say anything. 

“Hi,” Andrew says.

Jesse almost, almost laughs. “That moment passed a while ago, just --”

“I was just returning your hello,” Andrew says, “but fine.” 

“So I’m looking out at the ice skating rink below my window,” Jesse says, ignoring Andrew, “and all the people look like ants.”

“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Andrew says, sounding far away from the phone for a moment and then too-close.

“What, skating?” Jesse asks.

“In New York, yeah,” Andrew says, and Jesse pictures him skating, probably in mittens and a really big scarf and a nice coat, with flushed cheeks and --

“Let’s go skating when I get over there,” Andrew says after a second, clearly enthused with the (absolutely horrific) idea.

“Skating? No, no -- wow, you really don’t need to see me on ice,” Jesse says, backing away from the window, an ant-sized girl spinning in a ridiculous amount of circles below.

“You realize that just makes me want to make you go skating even more,” Andrew says, almost too earnest on his end of the phone, and it’s really bad, this thing Jesse has developed for Andrew -- not a  _thing_  thing, that would be weird, that’s probably not what it is, and when he stares at Andrew’s face for too long while he talks it’s just because he’s tired, not because he wants to do something ridiculous like see if Andrew’s lips are as soft as the look -- but it’s bad because Jesse is finding it harder and harder to say no to Andrew. 

“We’re not going skating when you get here,” Jesse says. He has  _plans_. Mainly plans that involve the mini bar and seeing Andrew again, finally, and maybe passing out in the same bed and waking up sort of tangled together and overheated, like that one time (two, three, five times) on the press tour. 

(Well, shit.)

Andrew makes some sort of noise in answer that doesn’t sound promising. 

“You’re probably freakishly good at skating, too, because you have a gymnastics background or whatever,” Jesse says. “It would just be unfair.” He pictures himself skating next to Andrew, slipping all over the place and probably knocking over some unfortunate child, and Andrew would just watch with some sort of stupid grin that wasn’t mocking at all, and then maybe catch him, and maybe they could skate really close together and --

“I’m hanging up,” Andrew says, voice low like he’s amused. 

“Wow, fine,” Jesse says, frowning across the room at the window.

“So I can come over,” Andrew says, still amused.

“Oh that’s -- okay, then,” Jesse says, and the tiny bit of relief that slips through in his tone is embarrassing even to him. 

-

Jesse changes out of his traveling clothes, and then changes again because he chose too many stripes for one outfit, and then changes again because he looks too dressed up, except he gets to the point where he’s laying out his clothes on the extra bed while shirtless in order to keep them all folded and organized when Andrew knocks on his hotel room door.

“Hey,” he says when he answers the door, because he still feels like their friendship (or whatever) still calls for normal greetings, walking over with two shirts in his hand -- he can’t decide which one -- and looking up at Andrew’s grinning face. 

“Hello,” Andrew says, slipping past him. “You forgot your shirt.”

“I didn’t --” Jesse starts, but Andrew’s noise crinkles up when he grins wider, and Jesse sort of forgets words and just flings one of the shirts at him. 

It misses, sort of spectacularly, landing without a sound on the floor by the window, a good two feet away from where Andrew is standing. “I rented us skates,” Andrew says after a second, taking two stubs of paper out of his jacket pocket and waving them a little at Jesse. 

Jesse groans. He’s going to take one look at Andrew’s face and end up going down to the rink just to fall on his ass and he’s going to feel the bruise there for days after, and it will be all Andrew’s fault if Jesse ends up thinking about him every time he goes to sit down. (That’s -- that’s not a particularly useful train of thought to have while Andrew is staring at him expectantly, either, not at all, really.)

“Five minutes,” Jesse says. “Or until I fall -- whichever comes sooner, which will probably be me falling. On the ice. Painfully.”

Jesse stares at Andrew for a second, awkwardly standing shirtless and ridiculous before he slips the shirt draped over his arm over his head, only rolling his eyes briefly when Andrew hands him his coat from the bed. 

“It’ll be good,” Andrew says, obviously way more optimistic about Jesse and ice in the same vicinity than Jesse is. 

Andrew bumps into his shoulder when he walks back towards the door, right as Jesse is buttoning up his coat. He pauses against Jesse’s shoulder, barely any pressure, and reaches to wrap his fingers briefly around the back of Jesse’s neck. He lets go after a second and opens the door, leaving room for Jesse to walk out first before he can think too hard about the warmth of fingerprints on his neck, the familiarity of Andrew’s hands, and what it means.

\--

Andrew is some sort of expert skate lace tier, because he finishes with his own skates before Jesse even gets one halfway done, and he leaves Jesse on a bench in the cold without explanation as soon as he’s finished. 

Jesse has one skate done when Andrew gets back, two cups in his hands, the holiday printed ones from Starbucks, with the insightful sleeves slipped over them. “For you,” Andrew says, handing one over, which Jesse takes a greatful sip of, and oh -- of course it’s his favorite, and Andrew would know, which is just ridiculous, especially when it makes Jesse almost unable to swallow properly. 

Andrew frowns down at his skates. 

“I’m working on it,” Jesse says, shrugging, and Andrew shakes his head and bends down, setting his drink down on the bench next to Jesse’s hip.

“You’re tying my skate,” Jesse says, mostly to himself, watching the top of Andrew’s head, his fingers moving quickly over the laces. Someone is going to take a picture of them and it’s going to look ridiculous and Jesse doesn’t even  _care._

“And now I’m done tying your skate,” Andrew says flatly, looking up at Jesse with a straight face. His eyes are bright though, and Jesse closes his eyes for a second, lets Andrew think it’s because he’s steadying himself in preparation to meet his fate out on the ice or something, but, really, it’s just because he has to close his eyes so he doesn’t do something stupid with Andrew’s stupid face right in front of him.

\--

It takes seven minutes for Jesse to fall, which he thinks is pretty good, and he doesn’t even actually fall.

He starts to slip when he lets go of the edge, Andrew skating in front of him and then doubling back to catch up, more graceful on ice than Jesse is on land (which isn’t saying much at all). Andrew speeds up a little, reaching out to catch him around his waist, just as Jesse’s heart starts to speed up, one foot slipping out from underneath him --

He ends up right against Andrew’s chest, against the layers of clothing there, one of Andrew’s hands curled around his hip to steady him, and Jesse slips around awkwardly on the ice to try and get his footing back, twisting around and slipping more, landing face-first in Andrew’s scarf. 

Jesse looks up when he gets his footing -- okay, he never really had anything close to real footing on the ice to begin with, he was basically just clutching onto the low wall around the rink and walking a few steps at a time, but still -- up at Andrew’s face looking down at him, a little worry line set into his forehead. 

“Told you,” Jesse says, not moving away even though he really, really knows he should. 

“Told me what?” Andrew asks. 

There are people skating around them, now, and there isn’t a reason for Jesse to be clutching at Andrew's sides, to be pressed up against him, just like there isn’t a reason immediately apparent to Jesse for why Andrew still has his fingers curled around Jesse’s hip, right on bare skin where his shirt and jacket are bunched up. And, oh. 

“You’re bad at skating,” Andrew says. 

“You’re bad at -- at your face,” Jesse says back. 

Andrew lets go then, shaking his head, one corner of his mouth turned up. Jesse doesn’t slip, even though he jerkily moves his feet until he reaches a point where he can grab at the wall.

Andrew skates up behind his back. “We can go back up now, if you want,” he says. 

Jesse appreciates that, he really does. Just the thought of going back up to the warm, ice-free hotel room, indulging in the minibar and catching up for real with Andrew is kind of awesome, except when he turns around (slowly, making sure he doesn’t actually fall on his ass for real) Andrew’s face is oddly serious, relaxing into warm and easy and  _Andrew_  when he catches Jesse’s look -- it makes Jesse feel a little like his skin is too tight everywhere for just a moment. 

“Back up,” he says, “yes, good. No ice.”

“Honestly you aren’t much better off the ice,” Andrew says, shrugging and skating away out of Jesse’s reach as soon as he says it, grinning wide and stupid and attractively from the center of the rink at him. 

“That hurts!” Jesse calls, making his way towards the nearest open part of the wall so he can get off the ice, watching Andrew do a few circles with the fast people in the center, “You know I’m sensitive about my on-going losing streak with the game of gravity.”

A young couple skating out onto the ice look at him strangely for a second, but Jesse ignores them, stepping off the ice, a hand at his back to steady him -- Andrew’s hand, and how he got across the ice that fast Jesse doesn’t know. 

Jesse grins sort of stupidly for a second at the vendor guy manning a roasted chestnut cart across from him before he looks down, walking with Andrew back to the benches. 

\--

Jesse shrugs off his coat as soon as they get back up to his hotel room. He pauses at the bed and folds it, though, laying it down with the rest of his clothes while Andrew unbuttons his own coat and twists off his scarf by the window.

“That was a horrible idea, by the way,” Jesse says conversationally, just as the air conditioning kicks on unnecessarily in the room.

“It was fun,” Andrew says, stepping back from the window, up to where Jesse is. 

There really haven’t been a lot of instances where Jesse thought about how, maybe, it might be nice to make out with Andrew, where he didn’t over-analyze and think about confusing his feelings for Andrew with getting to involved with his characterization in the film. That was months ago. Really, Jesse has had no reason for thinking about Andrew as more than a friend, someone he calls up once and a while (daily, most of the time, they go back and forth), as someone he’d maybe like to touch and explore and wake up in the morning with for several mornings in a row.

Jesse doesn’t really do those things with people, even though he gets offers now, tempting as they sometimes are he’d rather --

“I really -- when you do that thinking thing you’re doing, where I can see you over-thinking every movement, I really sort of like that,” Andrew says, unexpected and close, his voice low. 

Jesse can feel his eyebrows raise, even though he doesn’t mean them too, just some sort of automatic coping facial expression. “I think, I mean I don’t really mean to,” he says, reaching up and scratching at his nose, because Andrew is so close to him, and he’s sort of really, really missed him -- it’s only been a few weeks since they’ve seen each other in person, too, and Jesse is totally a little fucked. 

Andrew catches his wrist before Jesse can bring his hand down. “You’ll get better at skating,” he says, which isn’t really applicable to anything running through Jesse’s head at all. 

“I don’t think I will, but, thanks,” Jesse says, the words coming out quickly.

“No,” Andrew says, the corner of his mouth up again -- lips so close and soft looking again, even though Jesse really promised himself he was over the whole phase he had where Andrew’s lips were extraordinarily distracting. “You’re going to get better, because when you come to visit me in Febuary in London we’re going skating.”

“Febuary is far away,” Jesse says, pretending that when he swallows it isn’t as loud as it really is, “that might be okay. I’ll have time to mentally --”

He doesn’t even get to think about when Andrew decided he’s going to London in Febuary -- don’t they both have work? Or lives outside each other? Or -- because Andrew is right up against him, fingers rubbing small circles into his wrists, and oh, his lips are really as soft as Jesse hoped they were, right up against his own. They’re kissing, doing that thing Jesse didn’t think about them doing way too many times. 

Andrew pulls back just as Jesse’s brain catches up with what’s going on. 

“Is this --” Andrew starts, sounding for all of a second hesitant. 

“Hey don’t,” Jesse says, mostly at the same time, the first words that make sense, and then they’re kissing again, for real, a lot, and Jesse’s thighs hit the back of the bed with all his clothes laid out on it. He wraps his arms around Andrew’s neck, letting himself be pressed back until he falls down on the mattress, pulling Andrew down with him, and -- and it’s all so, so much better than skating. (Especially the part where Andrew kind of rolls his hips down and makes a little  _noise_ when Jesse -- who really does not pride himself on having any moves at all -- rolls his hips back up to meet him. And the part where Andrew drags his teeth down Jesse's neck, his hands everywhere at once.)


End file.
